when does alternate history cease being SF?

[Listener]

I've just put "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" on my Amazon Wishlist, and it made me think about the other alternative history I've read and enjoyed.  Some of it, like "Worldwar", is very clearly SF -- it has aliens and spaceships.  Others, like "The Two Georges", is not -- it's got steampunk elements like zeppelins and British control of the US, but it takes place in the 1980s-1990s and doesn't really have any technology that we couldn't make now.

From what I've seen online, TYPU simply changes one thing:  instead of Jews going to Palestine, they go to Alaska.  Then the author extrapolates what might have happened over the past 60 (? -- haven't read it yet) years versus what happened for real.

I tried, back in the day, to write a little alt-hist book where the change was that Hamilton killed Burr, not the other way around.  It took place in the present day (which is to say, 1997, when I was writing it).  There's a lot that goes into it -- a lot of notes, a lot of extrapolation, a lot of if x then y or if x then z statements -- but it's not necessarily SF.

Or is it?

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I've just put "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" on my Amazon Wishlist, and it made me think about the other alternative history I've read and enjoyed.  Some of it, like "Worldwar", is very clearly SF -- it has aliens and spaceships.  Others, like "The Two Georges", is not -- it's got steampunk elements like zeppelins and British control of the US, but it takes place in the 1980s-1990s and doesn't really have any technology that we couldn't make now.

From what I've seen online, TYPU simply changes one thing:  instead of Jews going to Palestine, they go to Alaska.  Then the author extrapolates what might have happened over the past 60 (? -- haven't read it yet) years versus what happened for real.

I tried, back in the day, to write a little alt-hist book where the change was that Hamilton killed Burr, not the other way around.  It took place in the present day (which is to say, 1997, when I was writing it).  There's a lot that goes into it -- a lot of notes, a lot of extrapolation, a lot of if x then y or if x then z statements -- but it's not necessarily SF.

Or is it?

I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that alt-history was the reason the term "speculative fiction" was coined.  That way, "SF" could encompass the sorts of tales you're describing without having to be "science" fiction.  In a way, a whole lot of "Golden Era" science fiction could be described now as "alternate history".   "What if" there really HAD been life on Mars - you could throw a new twist on the Martian Chronicles.

[Thaurismunths]

I think first you have to define "SF."
Do you mean Speculative Fiction, of Science Fiction?
Any and all alt-history would be Speculative Ficton, but if it has robots then the onus is on the focus: Does the story revolve more around the technology or the history?
Answers to that will be terribly subjective and land you back at "Science Fiction is what you point at when you say it."

[Listener]

I'm going to go with "science fiction" as my "SF" for this purpose.

[Russell Nash]

I'm going to go with "science fiction" as my "SF" for this purpose.

In that case, I'm with Thaur.  It's sci-fi when it has traditional Sci-fi elements.  If all you're saying is the other guy was a better shot than in reality, I say it's not sci-fi.  If you say he was wearing an energy shield, it's sci-fi.

[Heradel]

But is it science fiction if real-world science gets discovered/used earlier?

For example: Machine guns during the Civil War, B-2's over Berlin during the second World War, the internet instead of telegrams during the Victorian era.

[stePH]

But is it science fiction if real-world science gets discovered/used earlier?

For example: Machine guns during the Civil War, B-2's over Berlin during the second World War, the internet instead of telegrams during the Victorian era.

I would say "yes."  Especially since I know your first example there is the premise of Turtledove's The Guns of the South and said machine guns were provided by time travelers from the future. 

But I would say "yes" even without the time travel.

[Russell Nash]

But is it science fiction if real-world science gets discovered/used earlier?

For example: Machine guns during the Civil War, B-2's over Berlin during the second World War, the internet instead of telegrams during the Victorian era.

I would say "yes."  Especially since I know your first example there is the premise of Turtledove's The Guns of the South and said machine guns were provided by time travelers from the future. 

But I would say "yes" even without the time travel.

I would say if you're jumping a certain number of years than it is.  Like that?  Certain number of years?  That's because as technological advances speed up the number of acceptable years drops.  There were machine guns during the civil war.  Lincoln just couldn't get his secretary of war to buy them.  They were fed from a big hopper (not the rabbit kind).  Maybe even belt fed wouldn't be that unacceptable, but single person magazine fed machine guns would be sci-fi.

I'm out of time.  Is my point clear.  If not, let me know and I'll try again later.

[Heradel]

I guess I'll posit an entire scenario (though certainly not an original one) — Let's say you cut out the dark ages when there was a net decrease in scientific accomplishment, so we cut out about a thousand years of Western Civilization stagnation in the sciences and we end up with them having a much  higher tech level yet a smaller population around 1500 CE. Ignoring governments and if the smaller populations could give rise to that same level of innovation, let's say the Sputnik analog goes up during Da Vinci's lifetime. Now, nothing has changed except that a portion of history was cut out (by what method I'm not sure, but cutting out the Catholic Church would probably work), and so we end with with a much higher tech civilization earlier.

So is alt history only not SF when the alteration doesn't affect the level of scientific progression? The second something anachronistic comes in is it SF, even if it's just there because it was developed earlier? What if Darwin or Tesla was born a hundred years earlier?

[Russell Nash]

I guess I'll posit an entire scenario (though certainly not an original one) — Let's say you cut out the dark ages when there was a net decrease in scientific accomplishment, so we cut out about a thousand years of Western Civilization stagnation in the sciences and we end up with them having a much  higher tech level yet a smaller population around 1500 CE. Ignoring governments and if the smaller populations could give rise to that same level of innovation, let's say the Sputnik analog goes up during Da Vinci's lifetime. Now, nothing has changed except that a portion of history was cut out (by what method I'm not sure, but cutting out the Catholic Church would probably work), and so we end with with a much higher tech civilization earlier.

So is alt history only not SF when the alteration doesn't affect the level of scientific progression? The second something anachronistic comes in is it SF, even if it's just there because it was developed earlier? What if Darwin or Tesla was born a hundred years earlier?

Wow, the Dark ages question is great.  I think that's a situation that falls under the "know it when you see it" rule. 

Darwin or Tesla being born earlier wouldn't change anything.  They were both starting with the work of other people.  A base of knowledge and with Darwin a special trip.  If they were born out of their time, someone else would have figured it out in roughly the right time.

[Heradel]

Wow, the Dark ages question is great.  I think that's a situation that falls under the "know it when you see it" rule. 

Darwin or Tesla being born earlier wouldn't change anything.  They were both starting with the work of other people.  A base of knowledge and with Darwin a special trip.  If they were born out of their time, someone else would have figured it out in roughly the right time.

Thanks, but I have to disagree with the Darwin and Tesla thing. Well, maybe not Darwin. Let me give another example — Einstein. Now, he basically pulled special relativity out of his... cardioid shaped body part. No offense to incremental scientists, but scientists like Einstein tend to make the bigger breakthroughs without the same kind of building on previous evidence. So mess around with the birthdays of those scientists, or say Aristotle or Plato, and we might end up with a radically different world. I'm not sure I can accept the hypothesis that history creates these openings and someone steps in — I'm sure there are things that are so rote that they are discovered after X, Y, and Z have been found, but some of these things are pretty much skipping from A, B, C to at least I or M.

Granted, the counter can be that Tesla seemed to have an understanding of electricity and waves/resonance that was many decades ahead of his time and wasn't appreciated at the time, though he does have a corner of Bryant park now, so maybe we would just see them as crazy people.

Granted, genius and breakthroughs do have to occur in a climate that will foster them — my guess is that we probably lost an Einstein or at least a couple Feynmans during the dark ages and the Catholic church's repression of Aristotelian knowledge and science in general.

Which also raises the disturbing prospect of who/what we could have had but lost in repressive regimes in the last century.

[Thaurismunths]

I guess I'll posit an entire scenario (though certainly not an original one) — Let's say you cut out the dark ages when there was a net decrease in scientific accomplishment, so we cut out about a thousand years of Western Civilization stagnation in the sciences and we end up with them having a much  higher tech level yet a smaller population around 1500 CE. Ignoring governments and if the smaller populations could give rise to that same level of innovation, let's say the Sputnik analog goes up during Da Vinci's lifetime. Now, nothing has changed except that a portion of history was cut out (by what method I'm not sure, but cutting out the Catholic Church would probably work), and so we end with with a much higher tech civilization earlier.

So is alt history only not SF when the alteration doesn't affect the level of scientific progression? The second something anachronistic comes in is it SF, even if it's just there because it was developed earlier? What if Darwin or Tesla was born a hundred years earlier?

I was going to say to an earlier post that Science Fiction can either be about fictional science, or fiction based around science (fictional or otherwise).  But reading your full scenario I don't know if either apply.
As I understand it, you aren't creating any new science, laws of physics, or extrapolations. You are just moving our existing state of technology back 1000 years. This means that the story isn't about the technology, but how a different population (and their governments) would handle things had they been more advanced. I think this moves it from "Science Fiction" to "alt history".

[Roney]

Let's say you cut out the dark ages...

So is alt history only not SF when the alteration doesn't affect the level of scientific progression? The second something anachronistic comes in is it SF, even if it's just there because it was developed earlier?

Some form of creative anachronism seems like the SF clincher for me.  If the result of skipping the dark ages is just that the same things happen with different dates on (WW1 ends in 1218 and Hitler comes to power in 1233) then it's alt history of a sort but not very interesting.  Not that anyone would write something quite so pointless, but "non-SF" alt history usually has a similar feel.  The goal seems to be to take a well-known historical situation, tweak one small detail (someone's decision, or a chance event) and show how much has changed... yet how familiar it all is!  Marvel at the author's tremendous imagining of events that never took place!  (But don't worry, there won't be any confusing out-of-place technology: it's as safe to read as any mainstream or historical fiction.)

When the speculation imagines much more substantial changes to society caused by scientific advances that didn't historically happen, it seems pretty solidly SF.  I think that applies even if it's a real scientific advance that in reality occurred later.  In the case of the missing dark ages example, the author would need to decide what tech to introduce earlier, what aspects of society this would change, and what aspects it wouldn't -- to make it recognizably set in the middle ages, and to make the contrast with the unexpected tech interesting.

[Heradel]

Well, what I was thinking was just... Ok, going into an extended metaphor, bear with me.

Imagine time/progress as a bunch of sliders on the mixing board of history. Now, put population on one, governments/politics on another, and technology on a third. What I was saying is that we take the technology slider to 11 whilst leaving the population and government/politics sliders alone. Now, obviously those sliders have some logical interdependencies — sanitation tech and medical tech on population (moderating sickness and lowering infant mortality) and an internet-like structure allows for thought to be more spread out (though how much is an open question) and help with political/governmental developments. Also increased free time due to technological advances among the middle classes tends to lead towards revolutions among the more repressive regimes. Also increased technology leads to a need for a more highly educated populace, which also tends to be not so good for the King/Dictator/Oligarchy.

I guess there would also need to be a fourth slider for the Geniuses. Does Newton still get born in 1643, Galileo 1564, and Einstein 1879? Or are those minds and discoveries so unique that the state of scientific and technological innovations in their fields would have had to wait for them? Maybe we end up with really great medicine but we have no clue there's a Kuiper Belt? Or Hovercars zipping their occupants down to the Western Union to send telegrams?

I suppose this starts to infringe on the question of if Steampunk is SciFi or Alt History. Personally I figure that anything where the only thing being done is messing with the sliders is Alternative History until it gets to the part where one of those sliders goes past the current day.

[Windup]

Imagine time/progress as a bunch of sliders on the mixing board of history. Now, put population on one, governments/politics on another, and technology on a third. What I was saying is that we take the technology slider to 11 whilst leaving the population and government/politics sliders alone. Now, obviously those sliders have some logical interdependencies — sanitation tech and medical tech on population (moderating sickness and lowering infant mortality) and an internet-like structure allows for thought to be more spread out (though how much is an open question) and help with political/governmental developments. Also increased free time due to technological advances among the middle classes tends to lead towards revolutions among the more repressive regimes. Also increased technology leads to a need for a more highly educated populace, which also tends to be not so good for the King/Dictator/Oligarchy.

I question if you can crank up the technology slider to 11.  OK, sure you could imagine a case where, say, an internal combustion engine is built in the 16th century.  But I can't imagine a case in which it's anything but an interesting toy for a few under-employed gentry that finally leave it for the next interesting toy.  Lacking any supporting social structure or supporting technology, it withers. 

Steam power was known to both the Greeks and Romans, but the availability of masses of cheap slave labor squelched any serious interest in it until centuries later, when more expensive labor created an interest in machines, the lack of hardwood forests for charcoal made an alternate energy source necessary, and coal stepped in, supplying both high-density fuel and the earliest market for powerful pumps -- to keep the mines dry.  Printing was invented a number of times, but again, until all the other pieces -- both technological and social -- were in place, it was nothing more than an isolated curiousity.

I think it was Jerry Pournelle who used to say, "You get railroads when it's railroad time."

Which is not to say things can't "break" in different directions. One of my ongoing personal fantasies is an alternate history in which Henry Ford decides to mass-produce railroad cars instead of automobiles, effectively postponing development of the modern automobile for 30-50 years.  At that point, the "Great Migration" to American cities is complete, and disturbing the trolley-rail-bicycle infrastructure to make room for cars is about as unthinkable as, I dunno, actually designing suburbs around walking and biking... 

All of which is a long-winded way of saying I don't buy the mixing board analogy.  None of the proposed elements actually moves on a linear scale, and all are strongly intertwined.  I don't think that one and only one historical outcome is possible, but I do believe that the range of outcomes is limited at any given moment.

[qwints]

My definition of s.f. has always been an attempt to address the relationship between humanity and technology. Historical development is contingent on quite a lot and it can be quite fun to play with counter-factuals, but I see that as a totally different drama. I just don't see authors like Turtledove or Eric Flint and David Weber's 1632 series as s.f. because they seem more concerned with playing with historical characters. Not that they can't be fun to read.

[stePH]

Steam power was known to both the Greeks and Romans, but the availability of masses of cheap slave labor squelched any serious interest in it until centuries later, when more expensive labor created an interest in machines, the lack of hardwood forests for charcoal made an alternate energy source necessary, and coal stepped in, supplying both high-density fuel and the earliest market for powerful pumps -- to keep the mines dry.  Printing was invented a number of times, but again, until all the other pieces -- both technological and social -- were in place, it was nothing more than an isolated curiousity.

I think it was Jerry Pournelle who used to say, "You get railroads when it's railroad time."

I've always heard that as "It steam engines when it comes steam engine time."  I heard it from the late Robert Anton Wilson though I can't remember who he was quoting.

[Chodon]

Darwin or Tesla being born earlier wouldn't change anything.  They were both starting with the work of other people.  A base of knowledge and with Darwin a special trip.  If they were born out of their time, someone else would have figured it out in roughly the right time.

I have to agree with Russell here.  I see history a little different than Heradel's slider analogy and it's a little abstract and out there, so bear with me.  I see it as more of a series of intersecting lines.  Each person and item and area has their own line with a series of events occurring where they cross then divert the line from its original course.  Even something as simple as bumping into someone on the street may make the line shoot off in some strange direction causing it to intersect with something else years down the road (for example, that person you bumped into could end up being your spouse someday).  Or it might not divert the line at all (you both keep walking and never give it another thought).  Darwin and the Galapagos and several species there crossed, giving him the inspiration for the origin of species.  In the dark ages Darwin would not have an easy time getting to the Galapagos, and his trek of getting there would have been totally different, meaning it would not have turned out the same.  I think true greatness is when very driven individuals don't allow anything to divert the line as they head toward a known goal.
There are many, many factors that go into breakthroughs and, while great minds may make discoveries regardless of the time period they are born they would not make the same discoveries.  Take the theory to extremes.  If Einstein were born in 10,000BC I doubt he would have developed the theory of relativity, but he may have developed a better spear point.

[Windup]

Steam power was known to both the Greeks and Romans, but the availability of masses of cheap slave labor squelched any serious interest in it until centuries later, when more expensive labor created an interest in machines, the lack of hardwood forests for charcoal made an alternate energy source necessary, and coal stepped in, supplying both high-density fuel and the earliest market for powerful pumps -- to keep the mines dry.  Printing was invented a number of times, but again, until all the other pieces -- both technological and social -- were in place, it was nothing more than an isolated curiousity.

I think it was Jerry Pournelle who used to say, "You get railroads when it's railroad time."

I've always heard that as "It steam engines when it comes steam engine time."  I heard it from the late Robert Anton Wilson though I can't remember who he was quoting.

The "it steam engines..." version is certainly more common, at least on the internet.  A Google search has it attributed to all sorts of different people. 

In any case, the idea is the same -- there's a degree of "social readiness" necessary for an innovation to take root.  Although I don't buy the idea that there is one and only one possible outcome. At "steam engine time" you might get, I dunno, really big electric motors...

[Russell Nash]

I think if we tweak the slider analogy, it works just fine.  Pushing the technology developement to 11 is just too extreme.  Say everything should be at about 5.  During the dark ages technology was pushed down to 1 or 2, but what if it was pushed up to 7 or 8.  Heradel never said Boeing builds an F-22 before the Wright brothers flew.  He was saying things like; can we condense these 200 years of progress down to 30 years.  (OK, he did ask about the possibility of leap frogging a little bit, but not the really extreme)

The question is still a good one.  We've seen companies jump ahead, because they spent lots of money on R&D (Ford in the 80's).  We've seen companies plummet, because they got complacent and didn't do the R&D (Ford after the 80's).  What would have happen if the Dark Ages had been a high R&D time?  And then would that be sci-fi or spec-fic?

[Windup]

I think if we tweak the slider analogy, it works just fine.  Pushing the technology developement to 11 is just too extreme.  Say everything should be at about 5.  During the dark ages technology was pushed down to 1 or 2, but what if it was pushed up to 7 or 8.  Heradel never said Boeing builds an F-22 before the Wright brothers flew.  He was saying things like; can we condense these 200 years of progress down to 30 years.  (OK, he did ask about the possibility of leap frogging a little bit, but not the really extreme)

I have trouble with the mixing board analogy on two counts, neither one of which is the absolute "level" of technology.

The first problem deals with the whole notion of technical progress as strictly linear -- that "progress" will always produce the same cluster of inventions in the same order, but at different rates, depending on the setting of the "slider."  On the contrary, I think that at any given moment, many different technologies are possible, but only a few will be developed enough to become dominant.  Given a few breaks along the way, canals could have supplanted railroads, trucks could have been developed much earlier, much later, or not at all.  James Burke's series Connections on Public TV nicely illustrates this point -- have a few people meet or not meet, change the timing of a couple discoveries, and something entirely different emerges as the technology of choice.

I didn't think that Heradel was saying an F22 gets built before the Wright Brothers flew; I'm saying he didn't allow for the possibility of a world that ends up with lots of near-transonic drigibles, and nobody ever builds a wide-body jet.  ("Rubbish! The things would have to land on a huge swath of empty land on the far outskirts of town instead of docking sensibly in the heart of the business district -- what fool would ride in such a device?")

My second problem is the notion that the sliders are independent, or even somewhat-independent.  On the contrary, I think the dominant force in technical development is a powerful feedback loop between a society and the technology it uses.  In your analogy, the reason the "technology level" went to 7 or 8 would be profoundly important. 

If interest in technology remained high because Rome was successful in turning back the wave of barbarians being displaced by the growth of the Mongol Empire, technology would have been applied to the problems that Romans thought were important.  I suspect you'd get advanced weapons and some remarkable improvements in communication and transport, but precious little in the way of labor-saving devices -- what are all the slaves going to do? Watch the machines work?  By contrast, if you postulate some changes in the theology of the Roman church after the fall of the Empire that make concentrating on the here-and-now more acceptable, you probably find the church's astonishing resources plowed into marvelous improvements in agriculture and maybe printing, but they're probably still moving along mud roads.  And so on...

The question is still a good one.  We've seen companies jump ahead, because they spent lots of money on R&D (Ford in the 80's).  We've seen companies plummet, because they got complacent and didn't do the R&D (Ford after the 80's).

And we've seen companies spend lots on R&D and fall on their faces anyway -- Sony in the early 21st century.

What would have happen if the Dark Ages had been a high R&D time?  And then would that be sci-fi or spec-fic?

I think it's a matter of emphasis in the story as much as anything.  If the story deals with changes that have minimal technical impact but profound political consequences -- say Henry VIII decides that breaking with Rome really would endanger his soul -- then it's spec-fic.  If we postulate that the cruicial event is a "break" in technical direction with profound social consequences -- like Babbage's fictional success in The Difference Engine -- then it's sci-fi. 

Of course, my opinions carry weight only in the space between my ears, and sometimes not even there...

[Planish]

A technological anachronism introduced by a time traveller doesn't necessarily make it science fiction. Household Gods by Harry Turtledove and Judith Tarr had a character whose personality went back to 2nd century Roman-occupied Austria, by means of some applied handwavium. She "invents" onion rings, but it didn't appear to upset the timeline as far as we could tell.

Granted, that is a relatively lame technological anachronism. 

[CammoBlammo]

I'm interested in a different but related phenomenon --- when science fiction becomes alternate universe by virtue of its obsolescence. In other words, where science catches up to the story and says WRONG!!!!

Case in point---I've just started to read C.S. Lewis' Cosmic Trilogy. I'm only a few chapters in, and (don't worry, I'm not spoiling anything unobvious) I struggled with the descriptions of space travel. The protagonist finds himself on a spacecraft, which is a very confusing thing for us both. First, he has to adjust to the diminishing gravity as he leaves earth. Eventually, the ship's gravity takes over, but is eventually replaced by the gravity of the destination planet. The stages of the voyage are marked by the swapping around of floor, roof and wall in his compartment.

Second, space is apparently very hot. The inhabitants of his ship have to get around without clothing on. It only cools down upon entry into the planet's atmosphere!

This was really difficult to read, because I am so used to modern accounts of space travel (fictional and non-fictional). Of course, the part I'm currently reading was written in 1938 --- a full twenty years before the realities of space travel could be described from experience. This was complete speculation, and written by a non-scientist to boot. Science fiction hadn't even emerged as a genre. There are several references in the text to HG Wells and the 'space and time' type of story he liked to write --- the protagonist seemed to be widely read!

Here's my point: speculative fiction eventually becomes alternate history (or alternative science) by the simple act of time catching up and passing it.

(I could also talk about how science fiction can cause the future --- or prevent a future --- simply by talking about it. But I've hijacked the thread long enough.)

Back to the regularly scheduled discussion...

[Simon]

I'm interested in a different but related phenomenon --- when science fiction becomes alternate universe by virtue of its obsolescence. In other words, where science catches up to the story and says WRONG!!!!

Case in point---I've just started to read C.S. Lewis' Cosmic Trilogy. I'm only a few chapters in, and (don't worry, I'm not spoiling anything unobvious) I struggled with the descriptions of space travel. The protagonist finds himself on a spacecraft, which is a very confusing thing for us both. First, he has to adjust to the diminishing gravity as he leaves earth. Eventually, the ship's gravity takes over, but is eventually replaced by the gravity of the destination planet. The stages of the voyage are marked by the swapping around of floor, roof and wall in his compartment.

Second, space is apparently very hot. The inhabitants of his ship have to get around without clothing on. It only cools down upon entry into the planet's atmosphere!

This was really difficult to read, because I am so used to modern accounts of space travel (fictional and non-fictional). Of course, the part I'm currently reading was written in 1938 --- a full twenty years before the realities of space travel could be described from experience. This was complete speculation, and written by a non-scientist to boot. Science fiction hadn't even emerged as a genre. There are several references in the text to HG Wells and the 'space and time' type of story he liked to write --- the protagonist seemed to be widely read!

Here's my point: speculative fiction eventually becomes alternate history (or alternative science) by the simple act of time catching up and passing it.

(I could also talk about how science fiction can cause the future --- or prevent a future --- simply by talking about it. But I've hijacked the thread long enough.)

Back to the regularly scheduled discussion...

Nah, this just indicates Lewis was a moron...

Ah, ok...  I'll return to this less flippantly.

1938 was firmly into the modern age of SF.  Campbell was full geared into his metamorphosis of Astounding,  Stanley Weinbaum had already written numerous first rate modern SF stories (I am particularly fond of Shifting Seas, a terrific piece on climate change), and the genre was really humming along...  Verne, Wells and Stapledon already well and truly established.

All this shows is Lewis's ignorance.

[Heradel]

And to throw a wrench in this: The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon is a Hugo Nominee.